Conventionally, as postal indicia represent a monetary value, the quality of print thereof on mailpieces is primordial in order to avoid any fraud or financial loss for the user in the event of the Postal Service rejecting the franking.
It therefore appears important to be able to guarantee for the users of franking machines, or more generally of all franking systems, conformity of the printed postal indicia to the technical specifications of the Postal Service.
At the present time, the specific postal ink cartridges are sold with a guarantee corresponding to a limited period of use, for example 12 months, or to a limited number of frankings, for example 20000. In the case of users such as dispatch or mail services proceeding with a very large number of frankings daily, it is obviously the second limit which is applicable, the maximum number of frankings being attained well before the limit relative to the duration of use provided for the cartridge. Now, at the end of the guarantee period, the ink cartridge is often not completely empty (particularly if the postal indicia is not overelaborate), and may therefore still allow a certain number of frankings. However, if the user decides to continue frankings, it does so at its own risk without any guarantee and therefore also without any recourse against its franking system distributor, its ink cartridge supplier, in the event of its mailpieces subsequently being rejected by the Postal Service.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome this drawback and to avoid any risk of rejection by the Postal Service, by proposing a system for guaranteeing the quality of print of postal indicia. Another object of the invention is to allow such guarantee to be obtained whatever the type of franking system, electromechanical or computer-related, used.